


"Do you remember Miss Hodge?"

by IntergalacticCrime



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), The Paternoster Gang (Big Finish Audio)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27643988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IntergalacticCrime/pseuds/IntergalacticCrime
Summary: i just think jenny should think about things and events and suchlike I know there's not really much continuity but i love the idea of Jenny for a moment being like oh fuck daisy was rightPosting this separately from unconnected bc idk I feel like it doesn't fit there
Relationships: Jenny Flint/Madame Vastra
Comments: 1
Kudos: 15





	"Do you remember Miss Hodge?"

Jenny sat on the edge of the bed. Vastra hadn't done much standing or walking since the Anura incident, whatever she'd done during all that definitely took a toll. In fact, Jenny had come to expect Vastra to usually be asleep. She put her hand on her leg through the covers just to have a point of contact. It felt good to just sit with her after everything that happened. The month away had been difficult. Jenny had come to begrudgingly admit that Vella took good care of them all things considered. They didn't go hungry or cold and Strax never lost charge, but it was wrong them being so far from Vastra for so long. It was funny, Jenny thought, that just a few years ago the devotion she felt to her now-wife would have terrified her but she couldn't pinpoint when it had happened.

"You look deep in thought, my love."

"Didn't realise you were awake."

"I drift in and out."

"Do you need anything?"

"Will you stay a while?"

She kicked off her boots and lay beside her over the covers. "I'll stay until you fall asleep again."

"Will you sleep here this evening?" She didn't answer. Not out ignorance of rudeness, she just didn't know what to say. "Will you tell me what's on your mind?"

Jenny hesitated. It was true that she'd never been all that good at keeping anything from Vastra and that came with its own challenges. Despite her own criminal tendencies and fairly flexible sense of morality she was honest. At least when it mattered. She could lie her way out of a scrape and scam anyone out of a few coins, but they didn't matter to her. Vastra did.

"Do you remember Miss Hodge?"

"Who?"

"Daisy Hodge."

She was casting her mind back years now. "Doctor Pinch's girl?"

"Don't call her that."

Vastra flinched as if struck. "Of course. I apologise." Jenny wasn't sure if she wanted to continue after that, but Vastra did. "She's been on your mind?"

"I know she did some terrible things and she was wrong about a lot, but..."

"But?"

"All I could think about when you were all, well, you know," she searched for a euphemism before settling on, "when you weren't well." Jenny paused, seeing that Vastra was trying to come up with some kind of response and continued when she gave up. "All I could think about was what she said to me. About how you were just like any other rich lady with a particular fancy."

"Jenny-"

"I know you'd never, I know that and I knew I could make you see some sense, but I thought you might prove her right."

She watched again as she struggled. "I'm not your mistress, I could never-"

"You forgot all about me ma'am."

"I never forgot about you."

She drew her lips in, bracing herself and keeping her breath in check. "It was nicer than saying you didn't care about us anymore. Didn't even care that as far as you knew Strax and I were long gone."

It was hard to argue against the truth. Her memories of those weeks didn't feel like her own, the complete absence of any affection for Jenny and Strax over the course of that month felt wrong. She remembered thinking of them as inconveniences that had been taken care of. She didn't like to keep things from Jenny, especially after how badly things had ended when she kept everything about the ossuary from her, but she planned on keeping the complete absence of any sense of relief when Vella revealed that they were still alive from her for the rest of their natural lives. Even thinking about it made her feel nauseous with guilt. If she could purge her own memories she'd forget thinking of their survival as an inconvenience.

"Vastra?"

"I... I may have become lost in my own thoughts for a moment there."

"I'm going out tomorrow. Not for long but if you need anything while I'm gone I'm sure Strax will see to it."

"Where to?"

"Daisy probably doesn't get many visitors and if I've been thinking about her it's only right that I should go."

Silurians didn't have the same rituals around the departed that humans did. They didn't visit burial sites or hold them with the kind of reverence Jenny seemed to. Jenny wasn't a religious woman but she was a product of her upbringing and seemed to have no desire to break from certain traditions. Vastra made no argument when Jenny told her that they'd pay for Daisy's burial and headstone. 'She deserved better,' she'd told her and Vastra had agreed. Being detectives, they had tried to find family, anyone really, but there really was nothing. That seemed to upset Jenny even more, Strax too- he was surprisingly affected by her death. Vastra had passed the case onto Torchwood (anonymously of course, she didn't need the scrutiny), they could do more than her to the good doctor and his compatriots.

"I am nothing like that man," she said, pushing her initial admiration for him far, far away.

"I know."

"She even said so herself."

"I know ma'am."

**Author's Note:**

> remember when vella said she was nothing like vastra? yeah that was the good shit. id love jenny to be like oh um cool :/ thats two people now who've said you're kind of a bastard ma'am and not the fun kind
> 
> also at time of writing I have not proof read this at all


End file.
